I reacted instantly. Incredulity, anger, disbelief, horror,
fury. They were the initial responses. I hoped that after a while I thought I
might feel less about it, or care less. So I read it again today after
Christmas to see if my feelings had changed.

If anything, they are stronger. After a fortnight of
gluttony, family, love, friendship and a roof over my head – all those things I
am lucky to have – I actually find this article more offensive than ever.

As a fundraiser I am proud of what I do. And I’m proud of
the way in which I do it. If I need to shock people into giving I will. If they
feel guilty about this – that’s their problem. This is the all too real
situation in which the people we work with are living in.

Certainly in my experience, it tends to be the white
middle-class people working remotely who have an issue with ‘poverty shock
advertising.’ They want to portray people with ‘dignity’ and consign this
imagery to the dustbin. They bandy about the phrase ‘poverty porn,’ and try and
make fundraiser’s feel the same guilt they do.

But when I speak to my colleagues who work in country, and
who are from that country, they tell me; “This image is fine. It’s what it’s
like out here. That’s what our children look like in this area.” They send me
images like this to use.

So I do. And they say ‘thank you’ when we raise the money
that means that less children will face this horrible situation.

For me, what I’d like to see consigned to the history books,
right alongside this article, is this patronising attitude that only serves to
denigrate the profession that I am proud to be in.

(The initial blog post contained swear words, and a less
measured response. I’m still f*****g fuming).

2 comments:

Excellent post! I particularly like the bit about guilt. I hate being told to stop making people feel guilty. I don't and have never tried to make anyone feel guilty. If presenting the need makes you feel guilty then that is your issue. But am I really not supposed to tell people the real situation for fear of possibly making someone somewhere feel guilty? How far do we take this? Should we start using fake photos? Fake quotes? Fake stats? Clearly not! So why should we dress the situation up to something its not? Presenting only the positive side of everything all the time is just as misleading as doing any of the above.